Pablo Cruz was nothing if not patient.
On the second full day of martial law, President Hobbs’s assassin waited until darkness had fallen before slipping out from beneath the protective cover on a Bertram offshore fishing boat moored in a slip at the Hope Springs Marina in Stafford, Virginia. He still wore the dry suit, and he attributed the fact that he was still alive to the suit and to the belt he’d used as a tourniquet.
The wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been, given the number of shots that had been fired at him at the confluence of the flooding Rock Creek and the surging Potomac River. The slug had hit him in top of his left forearm, just below the elbow, and broken bone before exiting.
The pain had been excruciating enough to send even the most seasoned veteran to the surface and sure capture. But Cruz had embraced the pain and used it to drive him to swim harder and deeper into the main channel, where the current was swift and growing stronger with the rain and the tide. He was swept fast and far downstream as he felt water seeping through the holes the bullet had made entering and exiting the suit. He reached up and clamped his gloved hand over them.
After staying under for more than two minutes, he surfaced, saw lights on the shore, and ducked under again. Cruz kept on in this manner, swimming farther and farther toward the center of the river, always underwater.
After coming up for air the sixth time, he’d floated on his back, letting the river take him as it flowed toward the sea. He’d probed the wound, cleaned it as best he could, and applied the tourniquet.
Then he dug in the thigh pocket of the dry suit for the patch kit that came with it. The suit had been designed by cave divers, people who knew a torn suit could kill them.
It was a struggle, but he got two glued patches over the holes and then cinched the belt harder around his bleeding arm.
The assassin had swum on and floated for almost seven hours with the current, releasing the tourniquet every fifteen minutes to avoid cutting off the blood flow for too long and heading consistently southeast, downstream. When he’d climbed into the boat before dawn that Saturday, Cruz was forty-six miles from where he’d entered the river.
He’d found a cabinet with canned food and water in the fishing boat’s cabin. Knowing he risked serious infection, Cruz had forced the antibiotics into him before the painkillers. He’d eaten and slept fitfully with the Ruger in his good hand all day, setting his wristwatch to wake him every twenty minutes to briefly loosen the tourniquet.
Even so, when Cruz stepped down on the dock, he felt feverish and light-headed. He needed to put as much distance as he could between himself and Washington, DC, he decided. But seeing a doctor came first.
Cruz was halfway down the dock to shore when he saw a light go on in one of the marina offices. It went off a few moments later, then another one went on and off, and then a third.
That works, the assassin thought.
Without hesitation, he hurried forward and was hiding in the bushes outside the main door to the marina office when the security guard, a scrawny kid in his early twenties, exited. He had a thin caterpillar-like mustache and carried a flashlight in his hand and a small can of pepper spray in a holster on his hip. Cruz waited until the guard walked past before stepping out behind him.
He stuck the Ruger against the back of the kid’s head.
“Stop,” he said. “Do as I say, and you’ll live to see another day.”
The guard froze and then, trembling, raised his arms.
“Please, man,” he choked out. “I got no money. And there’s no money in any of the offices. Nothing worth nothing at all.”
“You have a car?” Cruz asked.
The guard said nothing. Cruz poked the back of his head. “Answer me.”
“I just bought it.” He moaned. “I worked overtime on this shit job just so I could—”
“I don’t care,” Cruz said. “Where is it?”
The kid cursed before nodding toward the side of the marina offices. “Over there. The maroon Camry.”
“Keys?”
He hesitated, then said, “Front right pocket.”
“Keep them,” Cruz said. “We’re going for a drive.”
“I can’t leave.”
The assassin jabbed his head with the pistol’s muzzle. “You must.”
The guard had stumbled forward, and now he looked over his shoulder at Cruz. He saw his battered, swollen, and stitched face. He saw the dry suit, had a moment of realization, and then lost it.
“Oh, man,” he said, holding out his palms. “Please, just take the car. I promise you I won’t say a thing. I’ll just say someone knocked me out and stole my car.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” Cruz said. “Toss the pepper spray and move, or I’ll shoot you for spite.”
The kid resigned himself to his fate, pulled out the pepper-spray canister, lobbed it toward the water, and then trudged around the building to a small gravel parking lot.
When they reached the Camry, Cruz said, “Give me your coat.”
The guard removed the jacket and handed it to him. Cruz put it on. “Get in. You’re driving.”
After the guard was behind the wheel, the assassin took the seat directly behind him and tapped the back of his head with the gun barrel. “What’s your name?”
“Jared,” he said, flinching. “Jared Goldberg.”
“Nice to meet you, Jared,” he said. “Now drive.”